Progress 04/01/09 to 03/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: Mid-Atlantic Hydric Soils Committee; Assn. State Wetland Managers; Soc. Wetland Scientists; Soil Sci. Soc. America; Virginia Tech students; US EPA. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? I held a two-day training session for the Mid-Atlantic Hydric Soils Committee to visit various wetland sites and to collectsoils data. We involved the VA Dept. of Health. At Virginia Tech, I have taught a Wetland Soils class and the data collected during research has been incorporated into my classroom lectures. My graduate student is now working as a post-doc at University of Minnesota main campus. The sites sampled will be visited during wetland soils field trips and training for Virginia Extension Agents in the future. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Wetland carbon data has been disseminated through webinars and in variousjournal articles. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
My graduate student Nilam Kayastha was able to complete her dissertation and Ph.D. in the study of wetland resource location mapping using lidar and terrain models. We did not gain access to ASTER imagery due to failure of the satellite. A new product called gSSURGO (gridded SSURGO) was posted by USDA-NRCS. It is a seemless detailed raster soils data set for the US. I worked with the developers to produce a VALU-table for hydric soils that will facilitate wetland soils investigations using GIS and remote sensing in the future. It is available now on the Geospatial Data Gateway http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/. My student and I plan to publish two more wetland mapping journal articles. I was unable to gain new funding for wetland carbon studies but have started a new project recently. It will not accomplish objective B, but I am working with US EPA to obtain their carbon data from the first NWCA project in hopes to accomplish that objective in the future.
Publications
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Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/13
Outputs
Target Audience: Wetland mapping community of federal and state agencies and private consultants: US EPA; US F&WS; USDA-NRCS; VA DEQ; VA DCR; Wetland Mapping Consortium members; VA Assn. Wetland Professionals; VA Assoc. Professional Soil Scientists; Mid-Atlantic Hydric Soils Committee; Assoc. State Wetland Managers Changes/Problems: We accomplished one of the objectives, but the student working on objective 2 completed her dissertation completely based on objective 1. Therefore, comparing SSURGO soil carbon values to remotely sensed values or field data will have to wait for a new student to begin work. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? We are working on producing a help guide using gSSURGO (gridded soil survey maps showing hydric soils) to be published on-line. The gSSURGO data set has broad use for the wetland mapping community, for professional, private, university, state, and federal partners. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? I have offered a series of webinars to the Wetland Mapping Consortium (a group of scientists and professionals across the country who share a common interest in mapping wetlands using remote sensing and GIS). We are planning one more before the project ends. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Develop the help guide and provide the link to ASWM and to USDA-NRCS for posting to their hydric soils web site http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/?cid=nrcs142p2_053957.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The use of ASTER had to be abandonded because of a malfunction in the satellite that collects the data. Instead, Landsat and lidar were used. Objective A was reached, but objective B was not attempted.
Publications
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Kayastha, Nilam. December 2013. Application on Lidar
and Time Series Landsat Data for Mapping and Monitoring Wetlands.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Wetland Mapping Consortium. https://scholar.vt.edu/portal/site/9c21338c-48e4-4055-8a2d-6464887a859b Moved in Fall, 2013 to Assn. State Wetland Managers web site www.aswm.org/?
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Progress 10/01/11 to 09/30/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Doctoral candidate Nilam Kayastha completed and published her study to identify statewide wetland disturbance from time-sequence of Landsat images. She is working on her second and third articles: Wetland type and location detection using Landsat and LiDAR elevation data. W. Lee Daniels and I advised graduate student Nicole Troyer on a project to determine the best combination of pipe size, packing material, and slot size for finding water table depth in clayey wetland soils. A publication is in draft. I was a partner with Jeanne Christie and Sharon Waltman in requesting a new selected data set of selected tables and a 2011 updated version of the seamless raster data set of all SSURGO (detailed) soil survey data for the contiguous US. Those data are posted with the full set of USDA digital soil data and is being tested for use across the US. I am co-developing an online User's Guide to be posted on the Assoc. State Wetland Managers web site. Webinars for the Wetland Mapping Consortium were delivered five times to approximately 200 viewers (cumulative). I edited the draft procedure manual for the National Wetland Condition Assessment sampling and trained and paid students involved with the sampling. The data will be reported nationally by US EPA. Undergraduate Morgan McKee and I conducted an experiment on campus and will publish the results. An undergraduate team and I worked on a simplified field method of estimating soil carbon content and will publish the results. PARTICIPANTS: Principal Investigator John Galbraith was involved in all projects. Partner organizations include: USDA-NRCS Soil Scientist-Spatial Data Specialist Sharon W. Waltman in Lincoln, NE; Association of State Wetland Managers Director Jeanne Christie; US Fish and Wildlife Service Natl. Wetlands Inventory Director Bill Wilen; US Forest Service Research Ecologist Megan Lang; and Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality partners David Davis and Michelle Henicheck in Richmond, VA. Collaborators at Virginia Tech include: Valerie A. Thomas, Dept. of For. Res. and Envir. Conservation; W. Lee Daniels and Nicole Troyer, Dept. of Crop, Soil, and Environ. Sciences; and Kevin McGuckin, Wetlands Project Manager at Conservation Management Institute. Other collaborators include Dr. Mark Stolt (U RI), Dr. Martin Rabenhorst (U MD), and other members of Multi-state Hatch project NE1038: Hydropedology: Genesis, Properties, and Distribution of Hydromorphic Soils http://www.nimss.umd.edu/homepages/home.cfmtrackID=11436. TARGET AUDIENCES: Wetland mapping community of federal and state agencies and private consultants: US EPA; US F&WS; USDA-NRCS; VA DEQ; VA DCR; Wetland Mapping Consortium members; VA Assn. Wetland Professionals; VA Assoc. Professional Soil Scientists; Mid-Atlantic Hydric Soils Committee; Assoc. State Wetland Managers. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
The state wetland regulatory agencies such as DEQ in Virginia have the need to identify statewide wetland disturbances in order to see if their permits issued are being followed correctly and legally. The time-series method of tracking disturbance and of identifying the type of disturbance is a valuable tool. The Landsat imagery is free, allowing a state agency with limited budget to follow the method developed. The work on identifying wetland type and location detection using Landsat and LiDAR elevation data will be useful in improving both statewide and national inventories given diminishing budgets and personnel cuts. Accurately finding water table depth in clayey wetland soils has been reported as a problem for created wetland designers and those who must gain bond release and the regulatory agencies that must review the success of wetland mitigation. A published article will allow for better interpretation in clayey wetland soils very common in the nation. The seamless SSURGO raster data and targeted hydric soils data set is much simpler to use and will encourage use of soils data in all wetland planning and regulatory processes. It does not require sophisticated or expensive software or highly trained GIS users. It is a simple presentation of data in an efficient way using readily available software. I am co-developing an online User's Guide to be posted on the Assoc. State Wetland Managers web site, which may also be linked to the USDA web sites at a later time to aid use of their product. Webinars for the Wetland Mapping Consortium were delivered five times to approximately 200 viewers (cumulative). Some of these users were repeat attendees, but the audience has been nationwide and ranged from state and federal agencies to university staff. The National Wetland Condition Assessment sampling was the first effort of its kind and is similar to the repeated National Resource Inventory sampling done by USDA-NRCS every two years. The data will be summarized and used by EPA and by Congress. Publication of the identification of hydric soils in the fall season should extend the seasons where regulatory personnel can check permit compliance and wetland delineation. Being able to accurately estimate soil carbon in wetland soils in the field will improve the functionality of regulatory personnel, consultants and engineers. These outputs meet the goals of improving the inventory and preservation/restoration of wetlands.
Publications
- Abstract and oral talk presented at the annual meeting of the Wetland Soils Division of the Oct. 21-24, 2012 Soil Science Society of America in Cincinnati, OH. Kayastha, N., J.M. Galbraith, and V.A. Thomas. 2012. Utility of Lidar-Derived Terrain Variables for Wetland Detection. Abstract. Oral presentation by Dr. Galbraith. The audience was 25.
- Kayastha, N., Thomas, V.A., and J.M. Galbraith. 2012. Investigating the use of Landsat Time-Series for Monitoring Wetland Change Dynamics. Wetlands (2012) 32:1149-1162. DOI 10.1007/s13157-012-0345-1 Available: http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs13157-012-0345-1
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Progress 10/01/10 to 09/30/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: An inventory was taken of surface C across a gradient of drainage classes near Weyanoke, VA. Soil C was collected at over three dozen sites, with five surface sample points per site. The areas represent full mature forest canopy sites. The vegetation, drainage, and soil texture was described at each point. The correlation between the variables will be determined and published. The specific remote sensing of wetlands described in my 2009 Hatch Proposal has been altered. Doctoral candidate Nilam Kayastha has completed Phase 1 of her study to identify statewide wetland disturbance from time-sequence of Landsat images. Wetland type and location detection will be attempted in Phase 2 of her study using Landsat and LiDAR elevation data in 2011. In 2010, I requested and obtained a seamless raster data set of all SSURGO (detailed) soil survey data for the contiguous US from USDA-NRCS and a subset of specific tabular data. That data was delivered through my efforts to US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and other federal agencies along with tabular data for use in improved wetland mapping and updating of National Wetlands Inventory, and for establishing an Wetlands Restoration Project dataset in multiple states. The raster data is a new product not available before. The database and raster data will be used to improve the soil resources database used by several federal agencies. These outputs meet the goals of improving the inventory of wetlands and soil C in wetlands. PARTICIPANTS: Principal Investigator John Galbraith was involved in all projects. Partner organizations include: USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service partner Sharon W. Waltman in Lincoln, NE; US Fish and Wildlife Service partner Bill Wilen in Arlington VA; and Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality partners David Davis and Michelle Henicheck in Richmond, VA. Collaborators at Virginia Tech include Valerie A. Thomas, Dept. of for. Res. and Envir. Conservation and Kevin McGuckin at Conservation Management Institute. Other collaborators include Mark Stolt (U RI), Martin Rabenhorst (U MD), and other member of Multi-state Hatch project NE1038: Hydropedology: Genesis, Properties, and Distribution of Hydromorphic Soils. The project is described at: http://www.nimss.umd.edu/homepages/home.cfmtrackID=11436. TARGET AUDIENCES: Wetland mapping community of federal and state agencies and private consultants. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: The original project was based on a field study using a new imagery product called GEOSAR. The product was promised free-of-charge and was innovative and unexplored for detecting wetlands. However, the company that produced the imagery failed to collect signals to correct the raw data, and the imagery was not useable. Therefore, we obtained a compete set of Landsat imagery and modified the project to use that instead.
Impacts
The correlation between the OC content and land use/vegetation variables will be determined and published, as part of an undergraduate research project. The specific remote sensing of wetlands described in my 2009 Hatch Proposal has been altered due to a change in graduate students. Doctoral candidate Nilam Kayastha has completed Phase 1 of her study to identify statewide wetland disturbance from time-sequence of Landsat images. This method of using Z-score with NDVI values was successful and is in publication draft. Wetland type will be attempted in Phase 2 of her study using Landsat data in 2011. Wetland location detection is under study using LiDAR and topographic wetness indices. preliminary results are positive for identifying human-made features that have altered surface water flow and soil hydrology class. A validation study is proposed for late 2011. We obtained a seamless raster data set of all SSURGO (detailed) soil survey data for the contiguous US from USDA-NRCS and a subset of specific tabular data. That raster data along with hydric soil attribute data has been delivered to US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), US EPA, USFS and other federal agencies for use in improved wetland mapping and updating of National Wetlands Inventory, and for establishing an Wetlands Restoration Project dataset and Easily Restorbale Wetland Landscapes in multiple states. The data and other wetland mapping have been publicized through the Wetland Mapping Consortium established through Virginia Tech and the Assn. of State Wetland Managers. These outputs meet the goals of improving the inventory of wetlands and soil C in wetlands.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 10/01/09 to 09/30/10
Outputs
OUTPUTS: An inventory was taken of surface C across a gradient of drainage classes near Weyanoke, VA. Soil C was collected at over three dozen sites, with five surface sample points per site. The areas represent full mature forest canopy sites. The vegetation, drainage, and soil texture was described at each point. The correlation between the variables will be determined and published. The specific remote sensing of wetlands described in my 2009 Hatch Proposal has been altered due to a change in graduate students. Doctoral candidate Nilam Kayastha has completed Phase 1 of her study to identify statewide wetland disturbance from time-sequence of Landsat images. That study was an apparent success but will not be finalized until 2011. Wetland type and location detection will be attempted in Phase 2 of her study using Landsat and LiDAR elevation data in 2011. In 2010, I requested and obtained a seamless raster data set of all SSURGO (detailed) soil survey data for the contiguous US from USDA-NRCS and a subset of specific tabular data. That data was delivered through my efforts to US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and other federal agencies along with tabular data for use in improved wetland mapping and updating of National Wetlands Inventory, and for establishing an Wetlands Restoration Project dataset in multiple states. The raster data is a new product not available before. The database and raster data will be used to improve the soil resources database used by several federal agencies. These outputs meet the goals of improving the inventory of wetlands and soil C in wetlands. PARTICIPANTS: Principal Investigator John Galbraith was involved in all projects. Partner organizations include: USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service partner Sharon W. Waltman in Lincoln, NE; US Fish and Wildlife Service partner Bill Wilen in Arlington VA; and Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality partners David Davis and Michelle Henicheck in Richmond, VA. Collaborators at Virginia Tech include Valerie A. Thomas, Dept. of for. Res. and Envir. Conservation. Other collaborators include Mark Stolt (U RI), Martin Rabenhorst (U MD), and other member of multi-state hatch project NE1038: Hydropedology: Genesis, Properties, and Distribution of Hydromorphic Soils. The project is described at: http://www.nimss.umd.edu/homepages/home.cfmtrackID=11436 TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audiences are those private, state, and federal employees, landowners and administrators who make decisions concerning management and protection of wetlands in the United States. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
The correlation between the soil C, vegetation, and hydrology will be presented and published in 2011 and represents a change in knowledge. No similar studies have been published. Phase 1 of Nilam Kayastha's dissertation research, the detection of wetland disturbance from time-sequence of Landsat images, represents a change of actions that will occur as state agencies are better able to track wetland losses and permit compliance. That study should be published in 2011 and the data set of images and methodology turned over to the VA Dept. of Environmental Quality for their use. Detection of wetland type and location will be attempted in Phase 2 of her study from Landsat and LiDAR elevation data in 2011. If successful, that study will allow a change of actions allowing state and federal agencies to conduct more accurate wetland inventory and track gains and losses. There are currently about 50,000 acres of wetlands lost in the US each year, some due to lack of ability to track permit compliance. In 2010, I obtained a complete raster data set of all SSURGO (detailed) soil survey data for the contiguous US. That was delivered to FWS and other federal agencies along with a wetland-specific tabular data subset for use in improved updating of NWI. Many states will use the same dataset for their Wetlands Restoration Projects that identifies wetlands that can be easily restored. The outcome is a change in conditions because the agencies will now have better technology to implement their programs. The raster data is a new product not available to FWS before, and it has a huge advantage over previous products because it is a seemless coverage. The prior data must be downloaded one area at a time and merged, creating problems in matching and enormous time. The database and raster data will be used to improve the soil resources database used by several federal agencies. All of these outputs meet the goals of improving the inventory of wetlands and soil C in wetlands for best management of the resources.
Publications
- Nilam Kaystha published an abstract for the Soc. of Wetland Scientists. Kayastha, N., Thomas, V.A., and J. M. Galbraith. 2010. A trajectory-based detection method to characterize wetland change in Virginia. Published Abstracts, 2010 Annual Meeting Soc. of Wetland Scientists, June 27 - July 2, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah. She also presented at the meeting.
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Progress 10/01/08 to 09/30/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The first project objective has been delayed due to a change in the graduate student working on the project and an error in collection of the imagery intended for use on the project. Task 1.1 was completed. Another graduate student has begun to work on the project and will begin analysis of Task 1.2 in January, 2010. The second project objective has not started. PARTICIPANTS: J.M. GALBRAITH. Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences Department, 239 Smyth Hall (0404), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA Valerie Thomas. Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation Department, 242 Cheatham Hall (0324), Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA TARGET AUDIENCES: State agency personnel for the Virginia Dept. of Conservation and Recreation, Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality, Powell River Project, and Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Federal agency personnel in Virginia for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, US Environmental protection Agency and US Army Corps of Engineers. Wetland delineators and private consultants working with wetlands in Virginia. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Because of the timing of the start of the project, there are no significant impacts to report at this time.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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